Building better mobile cross-platform apps for iOS and Android – Tips from experts

The businesses today, whether the health industry or e-commerce industry or the bank industry, are...

The businesses today, whether the health industry or e-commerce industry or the bank industry, are all trying their level best to connect with their target audience in such a way that they get easy access to their services. Since the time mobile apps became popular, this has become one of the most lucrative ways of retaining customers, keeping them updated with the latest offers and making them refer you to more new customers.

Due to the fact that there are multiple operating systems now like iOS, Windows, and Android, the app developers find it pretty tough when they have to go for cross-platform app development. It is rather hard to make an app which is compatible with all the operating systems. Here are few tips that you may take into account.

#1: Beauty of the app depends on the platform

If you consider opening an app with the same user account in 3 different OS like Windows, Android and iOS, you will see that the data offered is exactly the same but the look of the user-interface is totally different in all platforms. Although they will be well-designed and beautiful, the concept of a perfect Android app or a perfect iOS app will depend entirely on the platform on which it is being opened. Before designing, know how to target different platforms and then base your branding around several parameters.

#2: Reuse of code is for the logic of the app and not for UI

Just as Appcelerator, which is a cross-platform tool, there are several misconceptions about reusing codes. It is not reasonable enough to expect 100{f4476e8704a7192a47fd36bc205113170a8a79f980b1948ff13ee0ded613204a} reuse of codes because that will not only mean that you will have little control on the UI of your app but the app will also look similar through all the targeted platforms. This is not the ultimate goal for a cross-platform tool.

#3: ‘Web service’ should always be there in your mind

Due to the fact that you’re developing cross-platform apps, you should build a completely abstracted code as if it was nothing but a web service. The programming logic should be totally independent of such screens or the platform where it will run. Hence all such programming modules are not only reusable across several platforms but they are also platform-agnostic.

#4: Know your target platform

It is vital for you to know about your target platforms and the best method of knowing which platform is available to your app is by reading the interface guidelines of each platform. Unless you’re familiar with the OS which you’ve targeted on a regular basis and you’re sure about their visual and behavioral similarities and differences, you should always go through the guidelines. Check out Android and iOS guidelines separately.

Therefore, now that you know how to carefully build apps across several platforms, what are you waiting for? Make sure you use the tips given above to base your app development decisions and become successful.